TouchScape Creates Touch of Drama With First Marketing Campaign

In its first-ever marketing campaign, TouchScape is using three images to convey the themes of loyalty, connection and intimacy in its direct mail piece and print ads.

The images include a dog and its master; two boxers punching each other; and a man and woman getting ready to kiss, which is the piece that has generated the most feedback.

"Those themes are what our solutions help our customers enhance between themselves and their customers," said Jeff Gaunt, director of marketing at TouchScape, Phoenix.

The images are presented in black and white in order to create a sense of drama, said Dan Santy, president of Santy Advertising Communications, Phoenix, the agency that created the campaign for TouchScape.

TouchScape, a customer relationship management tool provider, launched the integrated campaign in August in an effort to target "mid-tier emerging companies" with a print campaign. This was followed by an e-mail campaign starting at the end of August, as well as a direct mail campaign that kicked off in mid-September and continued two weeks later with a second drop. All three components will run through the end of the year. The e-mail campaign has yielded a 1 percent response rate, while direct mail has generated a 1.2 percent response rate.

"The goal of the entire campaign is to build our database, and the way we want to do that is to get people to go to our site and register," Gaunt said. "Once they do that, we can begin marketing and selling our various solutions to them.

"We use the print to launch the product name and help get us out in front of a bunch of people and give us some credibility," he said. "A lot of people are very comfortable with direct mail, and we thought it was one of the best ways to speak to them. The e-mail is a quick and inexpensive way to reach out to another large group of people and can be used as another effective relationship builder."

In mid-September TouchScape sent 75,000 personalized letters that introduced the company and its services to vice presidents of marketing and customer service managers. The letters contained a detailed description of its solutions and their benefits, along with an offer for a complimentary issue of its new publication, insite.

A self-mailer postcard with the image of the man and woman was sent to the same 75,000 people two weeks later, regardless of whether they responded to the personalized letter. The postcard and the letter contained a toll-free number and a Web address.

In deciding what image to use on the direct mail piece, Gaunt said the "intimacy theme" was selected in order to avoid the usual imagery that hi-tech companies use, and to help the mailer break through the clutter of mail on people's desks.

"So far, there has been a lot of positive feedback and response to the piece and only about four or five people who have had a problem with it," he said. "They always say, if you are going to try something a little racy, there are going to be some people who object to it. As long as it's not a large amount, I think it's safe to believe that what you are doing is all right."

Two more direct mail campaigns are expected to take place before the end of the year. Santy said they would use the same format, with the personalized letter followed by the postcard mailer.

The print ads -- which ran in Inc., Business 2.0, SoCap, ICSA and S.A.M. -- urged readers to call a toll-free number or visit www.TouchScape.com in order to register and receive more information on TouchScape and its solutions or to receive a guided online demo of one of its solutions.

The e-mail message, which is all text and personalized, contains the same messaging as the print ads and the direct mail pieces. The e-mails are being sent in batches of 25,000 and will total more than 120,000 by the end of the year.

"The message is very straightforward and simple, so there was no real reason to change any of the text or to say anything different in any of the media," Santy said.

By year's end, TouchScape estimates that the total cost of the campaign will be just short of $1 million.

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